Chapter 76
Deployment (3)
The moment Yeomhwasin was mentioned and it was revealed that the men were Yeom Sawon’s subordinates, Jeong Pung recoiled in shock.
“I didn’t know.”
“I’m sure you didn’t.”
“I…”
Baek Socheon raised a hand and stopped him.
“That’s enough. There’s no need to say anything more in front of these bastards. I’ll hear your side of the story later.”
But Jeong Pung was already overwhelmed by the names Yeomhwasin and Yeom Sawon.
He spoke in a trembling voice.
“You shouldn’t have come here. Now you’re going to die because of me too.”
“You’re worried about me?”
“That man is like an evil spirit!”
Jeong Pung knew better than anyone how viciously the hairy man had threatened and humiliated him.
Why else would he have withdrawn every coin he had saved over his entire life and handed it over?
And now he learned that the man’s master was the son of the Zecheong Alliance Leader?
Jeong Pung’s vision went dark.
As the saying went, even after falling all the way to the ground, there could still be a well waiting beneath your feet.
Baek Socheon, on the other hand, remained completely at ease.
“Have you forgotten? Every bastard who used to be called an evil spirit ended up dying by my hand.”
“But… you lost your internal energy, didn’t you?”
“I have subordinates now, don’t I?”
As if those words were a signal, the sound of a violent impact erupted from behind them.
Thud!
Two men guarding the entrance were sent flying and rolled across the ground.
Behind them appeared more than twenty members of the Hyeoncheon Unit.
Every one of them was wearing the Hyeoncheon Unit uniform.
Only the words “Hyeoncheon” were embroidered across their chests, without a single additional insignia or decoration.
That simplicity made them even more imposing.
The hairy man shouted at his subordinates.
“They’re experts!”
His own men were elite martial artists as well.
Even without the warning, they could tell from the newcomers’ eyes and bearing that they were anything but ordinary.
In terms of martial prowess, the Hyeoncheon Unit held a slight advantage.
In terms of numbers, the Zecheong Alliance side held the advantage.
Baek Socheon thought it was the perfect situation for his men to gain real combat experience.
The hairy man shouted in a booming voice.
“Do you know who we are? The man who leads us is the successor to the Zecheong Alliance Leader!”
After realizing that his opponents were formidable, he was trying to seize the initiative by intimidating them first.
Not a single member of the Hyeoncheon Unit reacted.
He had proudly announced his own backing, hoping they would recognize it, while knowing absolutely nothing about the people standing before him.
If anything, he had simply given Baek Socheon an opening.
Baek Socheon turned toward the Hyeoncheon Unit.
“I’ve met that so-called successor before. He’s a complete piece of trash. Later, we’ll take his head ourselves.”
“Yes, sir!”
The Hyeoncheon Unit answered thunderously.
Beon Saeng was among those shouting at the top of his lungs.
His first real battle as a member of the unit was going to be against the elites of the Zecheong Alliance.
Baek Socheon had said they would hold his welcoming ceremony on the battlefield.
‘Isn’t this a little too intense for a welcoming ceremony?’
And yet, at the same time, Beon Saeng felt a mixture of nervousness and exhilaration.
Simply standing face-to-face with elite warriors of the Zecheong Alliance sent a thrill through him.
The hairy man unleashed a murderous aura.
“Do you really want every last one of you to die here?”
From Baek Socheon’s assessment, the man was one level above Wang Ho.
“Wang Ho.”
“Yes, Commander.”
The first battlefield order of the Hyeoncheon Unit Commander was given.
“Kill every last one of them!”
The enemy was too skilled to attempt to capture safely.
Trying to take them alive would only increase casualties on their own side.
In circumstances like these, ordering their complete extermination was the wiser choice if he wanted to minimize damage to his men.
“Kill!”
At Wang Ho’s command, the Hyeoncheon Unit launched forward simultaneously.
The enemy rushed out to meet them.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Battle erupted throughout the logging camp.
Baek Socheon remained where he was, staring directly at the hairy man.
The man drew his sword and advanced toward him.
“Do you really think you can deal with the consequences of this?”
“You’ll be dead soon, so there’s no need for you to worry about what happens afterward.”
“You bastard!”
“Today isn’t my day to be the main character, so understand why I’m going to finish you quickly.”
“What?”
The hairy man had no idea that Baek Socheon meant his subordinates were the ones who mattered today.
He charged forward, radiating murderous intent.
Baek Socheon rushed toward him as well.
Flash.
Slash!
The two crossed paths.
The hairy man continued several steps beyond Baek Socheon.
Then blood suddenly erupted from his neck like a fountain.
He spun around once before collapsing to the ground.
Everyone else was too occupied with their own battles to notice.
Even if someone had been standing beside them watching, Baek Socheon’s sword had moved so quickly that they would not have understood what technique he had used to cut the man down.
The hairy man had only been one level stronger than Wang Ho, whom Baek Socheon had defeated effortlessly.
So dying here today was hardly an unimaginable outcome.
“Gasp!”
When the man died in a single move, Seok Gyeon’s face turned deathly pale.
Baek Socheon shot through the air and kicked him across the face.
Among all the enemies here, Seok Gyeon possessed the poorest martial arts.
That single kick knocked him unconscious cleanly.
Baek Socheon’s gaze rapidly swept across the battlefield.
As he focused his mind, the movements around him seemed to slow.
It was one of the effects of the Thousand-Hand Tathagata Asura Divine Sword, a sword art that pursued the ultimate realm of the Fast Sword.
Whoosh!
A dagger flew from Baek Socheon’s hand.
A man who had been attempting to kill a Hyeoncheon Unit warrior from behind twisted violently and collapsed.
Aside from that, none of his men were in immediate danger.
The results of their training were clear.
Their opponents were highly skilled and outnumbered them, but they were still no match for the Hyeoncheon Unit warriors who had endured Baek Socheon’s brutal training and personal instruction.
Beon Saeng was fighting well too.
He had already cut down one opponent and was battling a second.
He was so completely focused on the fight that he no longer even realized how nervous he had been.
Jeong Pung was also fighting hard.
But perhaps because of his age, his long absence from real combat, and the turmoil in his mind, he was having difficulty finishing his opponent.
Slash!
Baek Socheon cut down the man Jeong Pung had been fighting.
“Come over here.”
“Thank you.”
Jeong Pung looked around.
To his astonishment, almost all of the enemies had already fallen.
Not a single member of the Hyeoncheon Unit had been brought down.
He could hardly believe what he was seeing.
He had heard rumors that Baek Socheon had gone to the Main Headquarters and been placed in command of a small organization under the Hyeoncheon Pavilion.
He had assumed the Grand Strategist had simply given Baek Socheon a token position to help preserve his dignity.
‘This isn’t an ordinary organization!’
Then Jeong Pung’s eyes landed on one particular corpse.
The hairy man who had seemed like an evil spirit incarnate was already lying dead with his throat cut.
“Gasp! When did you kill him?”
“A little while ago.”
“How did you…?”
“I was once the strongest man under heaven. I don’t need internal energy for someone at this level.”
Before long, the entire battlefield had been cleared.
Wang Ho approached and reported.
“All thirty-two enemies have been eliminated. Three of our men suffered minor injuries. There were no other casualties.”
Baek Socheon looked over his subordinates standing proudly before him.
“You all did well.”
“Yes, sir!”
After fighting this battle, the Hyeoncheon Unit warriors themselves could clearly feel just how much stronger they had become.
For martial artists—and especially elite warriors at the level of the Iron Sword Unit or above—becoming stronger was usually their greatest ambition.
They expressed their gratitude to Baek Socheon with their eyes.
Baek Socheon gave a single nod in acknowledgment.
“Wake that bastard up.”
Wang Ho went over and roused the unconscious Seok Gyeon.
When Seok Gyeon opened his eyes and saw the scene around him, he screamed.
“Aaaagh!”
The Hyeoncheon Unit warriors stood in a circle around him, holding swords still dripping with blood.
Baek Socheon asked,
“What are you? You don’t seem to belong to the Zecheong Alliance.”
There were no signs whatsoever that Seok Gyeon had trained in unorthodox martial arts.
“That’s correct. I belong to the orthodox faction.”
“Then why is an orthodox martial artist running around with the Zecheong Alliance?”
“I…”
Baek Socheon turned to Wang Ho.
“Apparently he has nothing to say to us. Send him to join his companions who went ahead.”
“Yes, sir.”
Wang Ho raised his sword to cut off Seok Gyeon’s head.
Seok Gyeon frantically waved both hands.
“Please spare me! I’m a broker!”
“A broker?”
“I arrange connections between Martial Alliance warriors and the Zecheong Alliance.”
That was the polite way of putting it.
In simple terms, his job was to lure Martial Alliance warriors into traps, blackmail them until they had nowhere left to turn, and then force them to betray the Martial Alliance—exactly as he had attempted to do with Jeong Pung.
It was practically a new profession.
With war looming just around the corner, all kinds of despicable opportunists were emerging.
“How much do you get paid?”
“It depends on the person’s rank. If I deliver someone of branch-leader rank, they pay me three thousand nyang.”
“You were demanding money earlier.”
“That money wasn’t for me.”
Seok Gyeon glanced toward the hairy man’s corpse, as if to say that he had taken all of it.
“So you became a lackey for a measly three thousand nyang?”
“…”
Baek Socheon turned to Wang Ho.
“Find out everyone he’s worked on.”
Wang Ho dragged Seok Gyeon away.
Baek Socheon approached Jeong Pung.
Jeong Pung stood there blankly, watching everything unfold.
He had never known that the Zecheong Alliance was behind it all.
“What happened?”
Jeong Pung sighed and began explaining.
“That man Seok Gyeon came to introduce himself. He said he had recently opened a new logging camp here in Zhejiang. I met him once or twice afterward… and the third time we met, he brought a woman with him.”
This time, Baek Socheon let out a quiet sigh.
It was an incredibly predictable method.
And yet it was also one that worked frighteningly well.
“I got drunk and… lost control. When I woke up the next morning, that woman was lying naked and dead in the same bed as me. I couldn’t remember anything.”
“And that bastard arrived and saw it?”
“There were several others besides him who saw it.”
They had been brought to serve as witnesses.
And they were almost certainly not ordinary civilians, but people connected to the Zecheong Alliance.
“You didn’t kill her.”
“I know.”
Even so, Jeong Pung’s face remained filled with despair.
“Then what is it?”
“I can’t forgive myself.”
“Don’t blame yourself. They probably drugged your drink and seduced you.”
Jeong Pung was silent for a moment.
Then he spoke quietly.
“It wasn’t because of a drug.”
“What do you mean?”
“I gave in to her seduction because I was drunk. She was so young and beautiful… and in that moment, I couldn’t restrain myself.”
Baek Socheon finally understood why Jeong Pung had been so devastated.
He understood why the man had sat in his office sighing so heavily.
It wasn’t simply because he had fallen into a trap.
Until the moment he slept with that woman, he had acted of his own free will.
Jeong Pung had lived his entire life as a devoted family man without ever being involved with another woman.
That was exactly why his regret and despair were so severe.
“That man traps people professionally. He probably found a woman who suited your exact tastes.”
When swindlers—or anyone deliberately trying to lure someone into a trap—prepared carefully and targeted a weakness, it could be extremely difficult to resist.
What Jeong Pung had done was unquestionably wrong.
But Baek Socheon had no desire to condemn him.
The man was already tormenting himself more than enough.
Of all the things men needed to be wary of, women were among the most dangerous.
And for an older man in particular, a young and beautiful woman could be the deadliest poison of all.
“I’ll handle this matter unofficially.”
Jeong Pung looked at him as though asking whether that was truly possible.
“You didn’t leak any Alliance secrets, and the money you used came from your personal property. So I think we can do that. You might normally receive disciplinary punishment for your conduct… but I’ll arrange for that to be dealt with unofficially as well.”
“…Thank you.”
A short while later, Wang Ho returned carrying a list of other martial artists Seok Gyeon had trapped, along with a detailed written statement describing exactly how each of them had been compromised.
Terrified for his life, Seok Gyeon had confessed everything without leaving out a single name.
“Send the list to the Shadow Pavilion as soon as we return.”
“Yes, Commander. But what should we do with him?”
Baek Socheon strode toward Seok Gyeon.
“I’ve told you everything, so please spare me!”
Baek Socheon cut off his head with a single stroke.
This bastard was even worse than the Zecheong Alliance men.
It would be a waste of food to imprison him in the dungeon.
After thoroughly disposing of the bodies of the Zecheong Alliance warriors, Baek Socheon said farewell to Jeong Pung.
“I’ll see you again.”
“Thank you. I’ll never forget what happened today.”
“Things worked out this time partly because of you.”
“What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t fate that summoned us here. It was your attendant warrior.”
“Jungmyeong?”
“That’s right.”
Baek Socheon continued,
“If you had treated him poorly all this time, he would never have called us here, and none of this would have ended this way.”
He looked directly at Jeong Pung.
“The person who saved you was yourself.”
At those words, the tears Jeong Pung had been holding back finally spilled down his face.
He had his family, and so many good people around him…
The fact that he had still succumbed to such temptation filled him with unbearable regret and anger at himself.
“I’ll come drink with you next time. Don’t turn me away then.”
As Baek Socheon turned and walked away, Jeong Pung called after him.
“Next time, I’ll buy you a proper drink.”
Baek Socheon had no way of knowing what Jeong Pung would be like the next time they met.
Perhaps this incident would destroy him.
Perhaps his family would fall apart.
Baek Socheon could only hope.
He hoped Jeong Pung would regard this as an enormous tuition fee suddenly demanded by a life that had otherwise been smooth, and that he would manage to protect the life he had built.
And Baek Socheon sincerely hoped that his own future would also be one in which, someday, the two of them could sit together over a drink and look back on what had happened today.